Anthony Weiner’s sudden rise in the polls comes as no surprise to those who remember him for one quixotic campaign after another.

Weiner was just 27 when he was elected to the City Council in 1991 out of a field of six, making him the body’s youngest member ever at that time and earning him the nickname, “The Club-Kid Councilman.”

“Did we laugh when he would show up on roller blades and skate around the City Hall parking lot during budget time? Sure,” recalled Ken Fisher, a Brooklyn Democrat who was among the council’s leaders at the time.

“But on the other hand, he was driven to work [on behalf of] his district. He was the kind of elected official that would show up at community board subcommittee meetings.”

While Weiner often lacked clubhouse status among party leaders during his races for council and Congress, he did have the support of the Democratic Party’s rising star, Charles Schumer, then a congressman and Weiner’s mentor.

“That and his youth are what defined him to a lot of people,” Fisher said. “He was Schumer’s guy.”

Weiner first worked for Schumer as a college intern in 1985. After graduating, he returned to Washington to work as Schumer’s aide.

When Weiner began pondering his own political future, Schumer put him in charge of his Brooklyn office.

Schumer, who endorsed Weiner in his previous campaigns, is not choosing sides in the Democratic primary this year.

Weiner, 41, grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, one of three brothers. His father is a lawyer and his mother is a retired city teacher. He graduated from Brooklyn Tech HS and SUNY-Plattsburgh.

Often underestimated, Weiner has displayed a keen eye for finding political advantages that his opponents overlook.

When Weiner ran to replace Schumer – who gave up Congress in 1998 for a successful bid for the Senate – he was up against three established Democrats, yet squeaked out a victory by a margin of fewer than 500 votes.

“His race for Congress was amazing,” recalled a Democrat who knows Weiner well. “He figured out something [his chief opponent, Melinda Katz] didn’t know and that was that Rockaway can’t be considered just another part of Queens.”

“He worked Rockaway as if it was the sixth borough and in the end, that’s where he got the votes to win,” said the Democrat.

Never to take a vote for granted, Weiner has spent much of his free time in the far-flung reaches of a congressional district that stretches through middle-class enclaves of Queens and Brooklyn.

Weiner also inherited his mentor’s skill for working the media – an effort made all the easier by his penchant for consumer issues and the buzz that often comes from dating beautiful women and holding fund-raisers at trendy nightspots.

In 1996, the scrappy bachelor was named by Cosmopolitan magazine as one of America’s 101 most eligible bachelors in an article that called him a possible future president.

Many who know Weiner say that win or lose in November, he’ll remain a major player.

“He’s a hard worker and a gifted debater,” said his one-time council colleague, state Sen. John Sabini, who is backing Fernando Ferrer.